Texas Rangers Blog

Texas Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus clubs first home run of the season in 5-4 win over Houston

HOUSTON – Elvis Andrus went to the plate in the seventh inning Saturday with one very modest goal: To avoid the first four strikeout game of his career.

Instead, he trotted off with his first homer of the season and a raucous reception from his teammates after his two-strike, two-out drive to left field pushed the Rangers into a tie in a game they’d eventually win 5-4 over Houston.

The homer was his first since Sept. 4, 2012, a span of 557 at-bats.

“It was awesome, it really was a lot of fun,” said Andrus, who is the chairman of the Greeting Committee following teammates’ homers. “But I was really just trying to make contact. I had been kind of frustrated after my first three at-bats.”

Andrus had taken a called third strike – his second called third strike of the game – in his previous at-bat and spent a few seconds talking with home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi about his disagreement over the strike zone. But between his fifth-inning strikeout and his seventh inning at-bat, the Astros changed pitchers, going from starter Brad Peacock to reliever Kevin Chapman. And every time the Astros’ bullpen gets involved lately, the
game goes up for grabs.

Andrus fell behind 1-and-2, but had seen a slider on the previous pitch and anticipated another. He got one, inside and a little bit down. He was able to drop his bat head and lift the ball into the “Crawford Box” seats that make left field almost little league length.

He flipped the bat and gave the trot of a slugger around the bases before being greeted at home by a dancing Adrian Beltre and a host of teammates ready to mob him.

“I’ve always said that if you hit 30 or 40 home runs you shouldn’t do a bat-flip,” Andrus said. “But, me, I don’t hit many, I have to enjoy them a little more.”

“The reaction in the dugout was shock,” said second baseman Ian Kinsler. “But the trot, well, he trotted like he’s hit 50.

“I will say this, I called it,” Kinsler added. “Before this series [hitting instructor] Dave Magadan said that if Elvis is going to hit one, it was going to be here. So before he came up that time, I brought that up and said he’s going to do it now.”

The follow up: How confident did Kinsler feel making that prediction about a guy who had struck out three times already on Saturday?

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “He probably wasn’t going to hit one anyway, so if we were going to predict one, that was as good a spot as any.”

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